L'AMOUR, LOUIS (1908-1988)

Westerns writer Louis L'Amour

Louis L'Amour was an extraordinarily successful
writer of Western fiction. He wrote
more than 100 novels, of which there are more
than 225 million copies in print. Dozens of his
books were made into movies.

He was born Louis Dearborn LaMoore in
Jamestown, North Dakota, on March 22, 1908.
His father was a veterinarian who loved horses
and athletics; his mother loved to read, write
poetry, and tell stories. Louis grew up tough
and with a voracious appetite for reading.
When the family moved to the Southwest in
1923, Louis quit school. He spent the next two
decades going through a string of knockabout
jobs, from Texas cattle skinner to deckhand on
ocean freighters and finally to World War II
tank officer.

His adventures around the world gave
L'Amour an appreciation for the sweep of human
history that influenced all his writings.
Starting in 1946 he concentrated on writing
and published his first Western novel in 1950.
Eventually, his output rose to three books a
year. L'Amour was a dedicated researcher. His
novels were known for their authenticity and
accuracy, frequent tidbits of advice, and embedded
historical lectures on the American
West. However, he was foremost a master storyteller
and had a superb gift for describing
settings, locales, and the past. His actionpacked
plots and heroic characters provided
exciting entertainment for millions of deeply
satisfied readers, who lovingly ignored the literary
flaws of a writer who claimed never to
have revised any of his work. L'Amour died on
June 10, 1988, in Los Angeles, leaving outlines
of more than fifty novels he had not gotten
around to writing.